One world, one Europe

If Europeans want to regain their self-confidence, they must seize the opportunity offered by the multilateral system

By Dominique Moisi

G8, G5, G20, G2, G3 and now the G14 (the G8 plus the G5 plus Egypt): never have the “mathematics” of world order seemed more complex and confusing.

Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the UN in 2005, attempted to adjust the multilateral institutions of our world to fit its new realities. It was a brave effort that came too soon. The Northern industrial world was not yet ready to recognize the new weight of the emerging powers and the need to strike a new balance between North and South, East and West.

Has the current financial and economic crisis, given its traumatic depth and the obvious responsibility of the US as its source, created the necessary conditions and a more favorable climate for a major re-foundation of the multilateral institutions? It is too early to be confident that true change will come. What is certain is that a rebalancing between North and South must start with an honest and hard-headed look at Europe’s current status in our multilateral system.

Nowadays, there is both too much and too little Europe, or, to put it differently, too many European countries are represented in the world’s premier forums, with too many voices.

But, in terms of weight and influence, there is not enough united Europe.

In the early 1980s, a former French foreign minister, Jean Francois-Poncet suggested that France and the UK give up their seats on the UN Security Council in favor of a single EU seat. Germany would no longer seek a seat, Italy would not feel left out, and Europe’s international identity would be strengthened in a spectacular way.

Of course, this was not to be. France and the UK were not willing to give up the symbol of their nuclear and international status. They are probably are even less willing to do so today in the name of a Union that is less popular than ever, at least in the British Isles.

But let’s be reasonable: the absurdity of Italy’s presence in the G8, together with the lack of official membership for countries such as China, India, and Brazil, is no longer acceptable or tenable. Yet, because of that anomaly, Europe suffers from a grave deficit of legitimacy and presence internationally.

Of course, the US cannot be compared with a Union that is nowhere near becoming a US of Europe. But if the contrast between the two sides of the Atlantic, between the continent of “Yes, we can” and the continent of “Yes, we should,” is so immense, it is for reasons that Europeans are refusing to face or even to discuss.

The first one is the EU’s lack of anything that incarnates it. It would be absurd to set US President Barack Obama and EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso against each other as equals.

Whereas Obama owes his election in large part to his charisma, Barroso is likely to succeed himself precisely because of his lack of charisma, because he says very little in so many languages. But, for national leaders in the EU whose last ambition is to have to deal with a new Jacques Delors — that is, a man with ideas of his own, a cipher like Barroso is just the man for the job.

On the other hand, the EU is paying a steep price for the bureaucratic anonymity of its leaders. A process of escalating alienation and indifference between the Union and its citizens is at work, illustrated by low turnout in the last European Parliament elections.